Danbury, five other Ct. airport towers to close

|
March 22, 2013

Air Traffic Control Specialist Eric Lanier checks on an incoming plane from the tower at Sikorsky airport in Stratford. 1/16/09

Photo By Autumn Driscoll

The air traffic control tower at Waterbury-Oxford Airport in Oxford, Conn. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will begin furloughing air traffic controllers March 1 because of looming automatic spending cuts which will affect six airports in Connecticut and about 190 airports nationwide.

Photo By Tyler Sizemore

Parked planes line the airfield up to the control tower at the Danbury Municipal Airport in Danbury, Conn. on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. A proposed federal budget cut recommended by the Office of Management and Budget would eliminate the budget to staff employees for several privately owned airport control towers, like the one at Danbury Airport, which would shut down the control tower operation.

The six are among 149 federal contract towers that will be shut down because of federal spending cuts required by the sequestration program. The Federal Aviation Administration said it will begin a four-week phased closure of the federal contract towers beginning April 7.

The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers. All pilots are trained to fly using those procedures, the FAA said.

"We heard from communities across the country about the importance of their towers and these were very tough decisions," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "Unfortunately, we are faced with a series of difficult choices that we have to make to reach the required cuts under sequestration."

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said, "We will work with the airports and the operators to ensure the procedures are in place to maintain the high level of safety at non-towered airports."

The other Connecticut airports losing their towers are Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford; Groton-New London in Groton; Hartford-Brainard in Hartford; Tweed-New Haven in New Haven; and Waterbury-Oxford in Oxford.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, said she was "deeply disappointed" by the FAA decision.

"There is no reason for people to be facing the loss of their livelihood,'' she said. "We should have sat down and found a balanced agreement to stop these cuts before they ever started."

The FAA is being forced to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities at small airports with lighter traffic. The changes are part of sweeping spending cuts known as sequestration that went into effect March 1.

The airports targeted for tower shutdowns have fewer than 150,000 total flight operations per year. Of those, fewer than 10,000 are commercial flights of passengers.

The Danbury airport handled more than 69,000 takeoffs and landings last year, officials said.

The 149 air traffic facilities slated for closure are all maintained by contract employees who are not FAA staffers. Hundreds of small airports around the country routinely operate without controllers. Pilots are trained to watch for other aircraft and announce their position over the radio during approaches, landings and takeoffs.